M: Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? We skipped a day last week, but we’re going to pick back up today.

K: Because Machida-san suddenly got a fever.

M: It really surprised me. I thought I had covid. If I got it, Kato-san and Monaka-chan would probably get it too, so I was really worried. So I ate well and slept, and the next day, I was as good as new. It was probably just exhaustion.

K: Yeah. We need to be careful.

M: Sorry for all the trouble I caused. Tonight, I’d like to start the Creators Radio at 9:05 again.

K: The typhoon’s closing in on us right now. Is everyone okay?

M: I think Kyushu suffered a lot of damage.

K: Yeah. I hope everyone in Kyushu is being careful.

M: Hopefully no one was affected too badly. The typhoon’s in the Chugoku region right now, and passed over Niigata, right above us, around tomorrow morning. Today it was really good weather in Niigata. The temperature was around 35 C. It was hot, though. I thought it might be due to the typhoon. I really hope there isn’t any more damage.

K: Yeah. Queen Elizabeth’s funeral started about an hour ago.

M: Oh, really? I hadn’t seen that. I was just waiting the newest episode of House of the Dragon. I’ll have to find some time to watch her funeral later. I didn’t know that.

K: There was a narration.

M: Maybe it’s different from how Japanese funerals are.

K: It was really nice. Well, maybe that’s a weird way to describe it…

M: As we explained last time, Queen Elizabeth was born in 1926, three years after the world of Penny Blood. I think it’s incredible how she’s served England and lived from that era until now. A respectable woman. I pray that she rests in peace.

Okay, it’s 9:05, so let’s begin. Good evening, everyone, I’m Machida Matsuzo!

K: And I’m Kato-chan!

M: Thank you. Anyway, this is the fourth episode of Creators Radio. Last time, we planned to invite Watanabe-san as our guest, but…actually, two radios ago, since we canceled the last one, that was the one where Watanabe-san was supposed to appear. His smart phone wasn’t working properly, though, so he was unable to join the space. After that, he said he would get a new smart phone, and did the best he could, but after talking to him a bit today, he explained that he would prefer to remain as part of the backstage crew.

I tried to pull him out, but he decided to stay where he is. He’s a craftsman, and he draws amazing art pieces, so I’ll respect his wishes. Tonight, it’s unfortunate, but… Watanabe-san uploads his art on Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube, so feel free to send him a message and cheer him on. I’m sure it’ll be great encouragement for him.

So we had TGS again this year, and a lot of different games were announced.

K: Yes.

M: We were so busy that we didn’t get to watch much of it.

K: True. We knew it was going on, and that’s it.

M: It was glad to see the show regain its liveliness. I love SRPGs, so I was focused on Tactics Ogre Reborn and Fire Emblem Engage. If I get the time, I really want to play them. Were there any games that caught your eye, Kato-san?

K: Generation-wise, I like Tactics Ogre. It’s Reborn now, though.

M: Yeah, it’s powered up, inheriting all the good aspects, in the ideal way. I’m really excited for it.

Anyway, TGS is over now, and our campaign only has ten days left. We’re finally in the second half. Ten days left. And we’re gearing up for another huge wave of info dumps!

K: We’re just throwing out everything we can.

M: Everything. With Penny Blood, we figure it’s better if we just release everything we have instead of waiting for a possible timing to release it later. We’re really trying to release everything we have.

So tonight, on this episode of Creators Radio, we’re going to talk about what sort of things will happen during the last ten days of the campaign. First, we have tonight’s update. That’s already got a lot of exciting content in it. Yesterday, we released Creators Desktop #02… Oh, wait, it was actually released this morning.

K: Yes.

M: Within the updates on the Penny Blood official website, you can get a glance at Kato-san’s desktop. Mine was revealed in #01. I think that artists will be really interested in seeing hers…and it seems like a lot of people have already taken a look at it. How has the experience been?

K: The experience of showing off my desktop? Nothing special. It’s my own desk, after all…

M: But you cleaned it up more than you usually do and decorated it with plants, right?

K: No I didn’t!

M: That’s what I did.

K: It was the same as always.

M: Yeah, I saw Monaka-san sleeping there. But you probably don’t get many chances like this to show people what sort of an environment you create your art in…

K: True.

M: So I hope it was something you were glad you put out there.

Let’s see… In tonight’s update, we’ll be revealing Penny Blood’s seventh new character. A character that Kato-san was drawing until the afternoon…or evening today.

K: Yes.

M: This new character is for our second character design vote, which means all of you are going to get to choose what this character looks like. I wonder what everyone will think of this character… It might be one that makes people say “Oh! We were waiting for this!”

K: In a way, it’s very ‘you.’

M: In a dangerous way? In a bad way? Oh, a wacky character. True.

K: The characters who’ve appeared so far have been pretty serious… Which might have been surprising for some people.

M: But they’ll take a look at this character and go ‘Oh, now he’s finally bringing these kinds of characters out!’

K: A Machida-san-esque character.

M: But I want everyone to be sane when they vote.

K: What does that mean?

M: I want them to vote for the design they think looks the coolest.

K: True.

M: We have three types this time. With that in mind, we didn’t add any comments from Kato-san this time around.

K: Yes. We didn’t want to give anyone any weird preconceptions.

M: We just wanted it to be pure – settings and design only. I hope this character vote will end up alright… And there’s one more thing. Shadow Hearts had its share of unique villains. Whenever I write stories for games, I always spend a lot of time building out the ally characters, but I always spend an equal amount of time on the villain characters.

For Penny Blood, as it’s set in the 1920s, I wanted to put in enemies who are connected to history in various ways, so I thought up an enemy team. They’re called the Hellhounders. In the last Thompson Report we released, Dorothy Thompson encounters an old man in a castle. A man named Dr. Eugene. He’s one of the Hellhounders. The detailed character design hasn’t been done yet, so I had Kato-san draw an insert-style picture of all four of them. A rough design.

These characters will end up becoming the nemeses of Matthew and the BOI…but you could also say that they’re the main characters of the ‘other side’ in their own ways. That’s how detailed their backgrounds are, and how tied into the plot they are. And starting from today’s update, we’ll be revealing short stories that feature the Hellhounders as the main characters.

We’re calling them “Penny Blood Side Stories.” You’ll be able to read them all in the updates section of the main site. They’re ‘gaiden’-style side stories that feature the Hellhounders as the main characters, based on incidents and historical events that take place before Penny Blood begins. I didn’t personally write these. They’ve been written by the translators from the Mamma Aiuto, who’ve also worked on game scenarios in the past. You could say they’ve become part of the scenario team. I have them help me out sometimes when I think up ideas, and asked them if they’d be able to write stories about the villain characters that we could release during the campaign.

I thought up the plots and supervised the writing. There are four in total, and they’re each the sort of story you can sink your teeth into. They’ll be released one by one starting tonight, so if you have time, try giving them a read during your daily commute. They’re really stories aimed for adults, though. There’s some erotic/grotesque content in them, so if you don’t like that sort of stuff, you should be careful.

K: (LOL)

M: The stories themselves are great, though, and should give you an idea of how they’ll fight and clash with Matthew’s side, as both sides will be able to understand each other to a degree. So I hope everyone will enjoy this glimpse into the future. How was it designing the villain characters? Even though we’ve still only done rough designs for them so far.

K: Well, they’re rough designs, so I still feel like I’m just getting started. It seems like they might end up a bit plain at this rate, so I need to work on them some more.

M: In the end, they all might end up gaining some more unique characteristics. I think it’ll be fun to watch how that develops too.

Oh, that reminds me. Vito’s red design ended up winning the vote, didn’t it?

K: Yes. Thank you.

M: I was worried if the coloring vote would get any attention or not, but we still got a lot of votes from everyone. Thank you.

K: There were even some people who were worried if it was truly okay for them to decide on such an important thing. They were concerned about the production side. Once they’re all together in the end, I’m going to adjust the characters a bit, so please don’t worry. Just enjoy the voting.

M: True. Looking at them now, the colors are sort of lopsided. Especially when you look at Candy and Vito. So we’ll have to adjust that later.

K: Yes.

M: Let’s see, what else… Earlier, I tweeted out some films and shows that I like, and there was a surprising amount of people who said they’d seen some of them. On the other hand, there were other people who said they hadn’t seen some but would check them out. When you and I make games, we watch a lot of movies and videos and use them as reference material, don’t we?

K: True.

M: When I started working on Penny Blood, I watched The Alienist and another one I didn’t write on Twitter called Lovecraft Country. It’s on Prime Video… no, wait, it’s HBO so it’s probably available on uNext now. It’s a drama series based on the world of Lovecraft and Cthulhu. We really try to watch a lot of stuff to get a grasp on the culture of the time, the buildings of the time, the clothing of the time… There are a lot of creepy stories set in that time period, too. Very interested. So if you’re curious, I hope you’ll check some of them out.

And even thought it has no direct connection with Penny Blood, I’ve watched Game of Thrones, and I’m currently watching House of the Dragon, which is great, too.

K: You’re just talking about your hobbies now.

M: Absolutely. Let’s see, what else… Better Call Saul. The drama series about Saul, a character from Breaking Bad. I love that one. I’ve always kept up with it. What do you like to watch, Kato-san?

K: Right now, She-Hulk is my source of healing. I don’t need to think at all when I watch it.

M: She-Hulk? But before that, what were you watching? Ms. Marvel? That one was good too, but it seems like you really like She-Hulk.

The Cassian Andor series will be staring up on Disney+ soon, a Star Wars series, so I’m pretty excited for that. Okay, we’re really just into personal hobby talk now. Anyway, we always get fresh stimulation from video content such as films and dramas. I read books, too, but due to my current time constraints, I mostly only have chances to watch movies.

I also like scary movies, especially horror movies, so let me know if you have a horror movie you recommend. Recently someone on Twitter recommended a Korean film called ‘Nageki,’ but I couldn’t find it.

K: I haven’t heard of it either.

M: I wonder what it is. Maybe the Japanese title is different. When I searched for ‘Nageki,’ the movie ‘Nageki no Pieta’ came up, but I thought that might be a different movie, so I didn’t watch it.

We got off topic again. When releasing information, characters, and image boards from Penny Blood, I make sure to sprinkle hints and keywords about. With the image boards, I try to describe what happens to him in those locations through a little hint at the end… And it seems like everyone’s been examining these pretty closely! A bit ago someone was talking about how Vito shares the same name as the main character of The Godfather.

K: Oh, I see. I didn’t know that.

M: The more you look into these things, the more you’ll discover about certain incidents, culture, history in the 1920s. I hope people will have fun uncovering the different secrets.

Also, like I mentioned last time on Discord, about the pet races…er, dog races. It seems like we’ll be getting a lot of different kinds of pets, so I accidentally said pet races, but they’re dog races. The basic purpose of these is to power up Luca, but the player can also bet money on the races as if it’s a gambling game in a casino.

The interesting pets of those who purchase the pet reward might appear in each race, though. I’m really going to do my best to make sure every pet has a chance of appearing, no matter what sort of pet it is. Pets will be strong, but the player will also take part in the race as Luca. And Luca won’t be able to power up unless you win, so if you enter the race as Luca and you see one of the pets in the other lanes… You might as well just give up there.

K: (LOL) Because you have to defeat your own pet?

M: You have to defeat your own pet. Everyone has to defeat Chupinosuke.

K: I see.

M: And if some other pet besides Chupinosuke appears, that pet will also become a formidable rival. I don’t think there are many chances to do something like this… This is a first even for me, up until now in my career of creating games. We’re creating the game together here, so being able to compete against each other inside the game like this is a new discovery for me.

Let’s see, what else did I want to talk about… As I explained, there will be another design vote in tonight’s update. But we’re also releasing another monster and image board. These should also be a pleasant surprise, so I hope you’ll check them out.

But tomorrow is a weekday, and everyone probably has work and school, so you shouldn’t stay up late. You should just wake up early around 7 or so and check it out. Staying up late isn’t good for you! Trust me, I learned this firsthand. Waking up early is good, that’s what I feel. So I hope everyone will go on enjoying the campaign while also maintaining their personal lifestyles.

I’ve also received some comments from people who are worried that I’m showing too much… That it’ll make people get bored when they play the actual game. But that won’t happen. I’ve only been releasing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Penny Blood – only what I feel is safe to release. We’d regret it more if we had things leftover that we weren’t able to release during the campaign. With that in mind, after storing all this content up for so long, we really just want to get people to understand just how fun Penny Blood will be – even just a little!

That reminds me, we also have the mascot character now, don’t we? Baby Cthulhu. I hope we can reveal that character soon too.

K: Yes.

M: You redrew that one multiple times too, didn’t you?

K: Yes. At first… I thought it was cute, but I couldn’t get anyone to agree with me… I think I worked pretty hard to make it cute.

M: I think it turned out pretty cute in the end. I hope we can show it to everyone soon.

Now, I’d like to do a little preview of our next Creators Radio, since we’re close to the 30-minute mark. Next time, on Thursday at 21 PM, Hirota-san will return with our special guest, Akari Kaida-san.

I’m just worrying if Kaida-san will be okay… If she’ll be able to perform the ritual. The operational hurdle this requires. I’m excited for Thursday, I’m looking forward to chatting with both of them.

The update on Wednesday will be related to Kaida-san, so I hope you all check out the update before listening to the Creators Radio. It’ll make a lot more sense that way, so look forward to it. Do you have anything else to say, Kato-san?

K: Oh. Well apparently they’re gathering moderators over on Discord. The campaign staff sent out a call for moderators recently, and currently they have 4 English moderators and 2 Japanese moderators, so it would be nice to have some more Japanese moderators. If you think you have what it takes, I hope you’ll apply.

M: It’s volunteer, so we want to thank all the moderators somehow. I’ll think of something.

K: (LOL)

M: Not with letting them appear in the game or anything like that, but something that can show our thanks.

K: Maybe putting them in the credits?

M: Yes, that would be a good idea. The campaign itself is something that we and the backers build up together, and we only have 10 days left… But like I said early, another massive wave of information is about to come out… Art and settings we’ve had saved up will all be released.

K: Songs, too.

M: Yes, we have good songs, too, so I hope everyone will get them a listen.

K: Look forward to it.

M: We’re over the halfway point, in the second half now. We’ve never done anything like this before, so we’re learning a lot and enjoying it. The next Creators Radio, #05, will happen on Thursday, so please come and give it a listen!

That’s it for today. Thank you very much!